You may want to skip the toppings on your next hot dog, or skip it altogether: Health researchers at the University of Michigan have found that eating a single hot dog could take 36 minutes off your life.
In their study, published this month in the journal Nature Food, researchers looked at 5,853 foods in the US diet and measured their effects in minutes of healthy life gained or lost.
The team came up with an index that calculates the net beneficial or detrimental health burden in minutes of healthy life associated with a serving of food.
It’s based on a study called the Global Burden of Disease, which measures morbidity associated with a person’s food choices.
One of the foods researchers measured was a standard beef hot dog on a bun. Its 61 grams of processed meat resulted in the loss of 27 minutes of a healthy life, but when ingredients like sodium and trans fatty acids were factored in, the final value was 36 minutes lost.
